Ketamine can play an important role in the treatment of anxiety disorders.
At present, people with anxiety disorders are treated either with a generic antidepressant, such as an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), an SNRI (selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor), or a benzodiazepine and if they don’t respond to one of these, they get a trial of another or several more of the same medication class.
However, between 30% and 40% of these patients will not achieve remission, despite 3 or 4 different traditional agents, and even with evidence-based psychotherapies
Ketamine is a novel agent that is rapidly effective for an array of anxiety disorders, including social anxiety disorder (SAD) and PTSD.
Studies have shown Ketamine to be effective in treating patients who had failed other forms of anti-anxiety therapies and what is interesting about these studies is that the impact of just one infusion lasted for 14 weeks, suggesting that patient[s] with anxiety disorders might have longer maintenance of response than patients with major depression, where the response has been maintained for only one week.
At the Balance Ketamine Clinic in Chicago, we administer IV Ketamine infusion for depression as well as severe anxiety.
